memes

Used to ship auto parts from a company called 'Specialty Products Company'.

"what'd you guys sell"

"IDK... 'Products?'..."

Still not convinced they aren't a money launderer.

The "Water and Donut Store" where they get mad if you ask for donuts, say it's not the right time of day for donuts (all times of day/night are the wrong time, but there are always three or four stale, lonely donuts in the large glass donut cases) and have a station where you may, for a small fee, fill your water jugs with minimally filtered tap water. 🤨

It’s either “Just Socks” the store that sells mostly socks but also some other stuff and is always empty or the vacuum repair shop that hasn’t had a single car in the parking lot for the past twenty years

I keep thinking about the pizza store that was opened as a front for the mafia but did such good business that they just quit doing the mafia thing and just sold pizzas full-time

We have a local chain of antique shops, very high-end

Never see anyone come or go

The auction centre every time they sell art (or whatever some of that stuff is supposed to be).

Uber

Rug stores. There’s around twelve of them along a couple miles of road. How many rug stores could one city possibly need?

There’s a shoe store near me. It stands alone in an almost non walkable part of a street. I never see a car in the parking lot. It’s always open and it has been there for, like, 15 years or more. It’s impossible that that store is profitable.

There was a printing shop where I used to live. This was back in 2017ish. I lived there 3 years, and would walk by it all the time bcz i lived close by. I never saw a single customer go in there in the three years I lived there. They were money laundering.

we have what seems like about 15 mattress stores along one stretch of road, and we also have a store that sells nothing but bar stools. I've often thought that about those places...

There is an "unlicensed" car repair shop in my town. They always service upper-price class, new-looking cars with license plates from far away. Never actually seen anyone working on them, but the suit wearers that collect the cars always seem happy. Not fishy at all, no need to investigate.

'Smartphone repair shop' near where I live. Has always light on (24/7 confirmed), but nobody inside. At times an ad flag (those 2mt tall with the shop name on it) comes out and is near the entrance.

One time I managed to catch a guy behind a counter and entered for asking if they had some spare parts (I think it was a battery) and he looked fucking disgusted just because I dared to enter. Useless to say, they did not have any spare parts.

As of today (4 or 5 months), not a single client entered.

Also, that shop that sells completely random stuff (chandeliers, dolls, weird stautes statues, horrible carpets and so much more junk), never seen it open but have been there for like at least 30 years.

We were excited to learn of a new restaurant opening, an all-day breakfast and lunch place, like an upscale Denny's with a liquor license.

Hmm. That sounds more ghetto than summer lazy patio time with friends should.

Anyway, they finished setting up 4 years ago. At most I see 2 cars in the lot on the way past and no one seems to ever be inside.

Either they're laundering serious cash or they're somehow bankrupting a restaurant in an area that needs an option other than pizza and subway.

Why would a town with less than 15000 inhabitants need 3 laundromats, 3 hand carwashes and 2 mattress stores? The 4 nightshops are also shady.

I feel this way about mattress stores. Can't prove it either.

Mattress Firm Money Laundering conspiracy theory

There's multiple tiny Mexican restaurants in my town that I 100% know are run by the cartel. Like,I know the manager didn't buy a $100k dodge Durango hellcat selling burritos and tacos in a farm town.

I don't fucking care though, the tacos are good.

There is a rug store here that has been "going out of business" for decades. Since before they moved to their current location in a massive new building.

Not quite the same but I used to work at a local, family owned supermarket chain that is now out of business. I started at one of the busiest locations, but after I moved apartments I transferred to another location that was out in the 'burbs. At the first location I worked at, all our equipment was well maintained, stock was reasonable, stuff seemed normal.

At the suburban location, our equipment was all falling apart. The roof leaked. The other stores sent us their overstock and charged it to our departments. I was in the deli, and one day the contracted maintenance guy was there and I asked if he could take a look at one of the meat slicers. He said sorry, corporate told him not to do any work at this location that they hadn't pre-approved.

My first hypothesis was that this location didn't make any money, and that's why they didn't want to spend to fix it. One day I decided to ask the store manager about it—he was pretty chill and we talked sometimes, so I figured he wouldn't mind. I said "Does this store actually make any money?" and he said "Well, let me put it this way: the numbers I report to corporate show that every department here, except floral, makes a profit every month. And then the numbers they put out in the quarterly reports show that we've never made a profit since we opened."

"Where does the money go?" I asked.

"That's above my pay grade," he said.

I'm convinced someone was embezzling funds. A couple years after I left, the whole chain closed one day with no notice to the employees.

There's a donut shop near me that's only open from 1am to 10am. If that's not suspicious then I don't know what is.

We have a jewelry store in town that is by appointment only. During the day there's always a high end car parked at the back of the store but you never see anyone in there. When my buddy was getting ready to propose he tried calling to get an appointment and it went straight to voicemail with a message that said private clients only and then beeped. He left a message but never heard back. I've never met anyone who has seen anyone go in or come out of that place.

There’s a Mexican restaurant which I always wanted to try. Walked in and ordered a carne asada plate- the fucking thing was almost 30 bucks. It took like 20 minutes and was the consistency of reconstituted shoe leather and tasted like a jarred fart.

There is never a soul eating in there and yet it remains open.

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER

We have several Community Market arrangements in my town. People who make homemade stuff, like decorations, knitwear, art, crafts, jam, soap etc can book a stand for a day or several. It's extremely exhausting to sit on a shitty chair for 8 hours straight in a crowded place, and especially in the Christmas market when you are half outside and temperatures are close to freezing, so most people book two days in a row at most.

This one group of people just books end-to-end for the entire market duration. Like, weeks. They show up, fill their stand with TEMU crap, and take turns to sit at the stand and consistently sell nothing to nobody.

JP Morgan Chase, Comerica, Bank of America, etc

That one

In eastern europe it’s like every second shop so you get quickly used to it